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“What I did see was somebody being carried - I don’t know if it was male or female - onto the pitch and then I saw a jacket being placed over that person’s face.”

She added: “There were people shouting for the gates to be opened. I could hear a lot of shouting, ‘open the gates, people are dying’.”

Mrs Steele told Preston crown court: “I did see some police officers, I seem to remember about four police officers standing, looking into the pens, but nothing seemed to be getting done about it at all.”

She added: “People were being carried out of the pens and suddenly that football pitch looked like a battleground, there were so many people out there, lying around.”

Mrs Steele and her husband left the stand and found their youngest son Brian standing on a wall, looking for his big brother.

They all split up searching for Philip and she went to the entrance of the tunnel which led down to the terraces.

“I stood in the mouth of the tunnel, thinking that if he was injured or just trying to make his way out, he would come up the tunnel and I would be there” she said.

Dolores Steele said the pitch "looked like a battleground" (Image: Mercury Press)